


Survival

by Benedickted



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Canonical Character Death, Love/Hate, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, The Upside Down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-05 20:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20279242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benedickted/pseuds/Benedickted
Summary: Billy didn't know why he was alive.It felt like a dream. Everything that that...that thing made him do. He could only watch. But when that monster plunged into his chest and he hit the ground...He woke up.





	1. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the theory the billy that died was the doppelganger and the real Billy is trapped in the upside-down

Billy didn't know why he was alive.

It felt like a dream. Everything that that...that thing made him do. He could only watch. But when that monster plunged into his chest and he hit the ground...

He woke up. 

He was standing but he quickly fell over from the shock. He was back in that place. It looked like hawkins but, not quite. He blinked as he looked around. Alone outside of the high school. He narrowed his eyes and gulped. Was this hell? Was that what this place was? Did he really die in that car crash and he was just living some twisted punishment? 

He heard the kids talk about him, talk about what was in him. It still didn't make sense. He looked at his hands and the black tears in his flesh weren't there anymore. He stood after a minute. He needed to get out of here. He was brought here right? There had to be a way out then, right? He spun around a few times, trying to remember where the thing grabbed him. He started walking slowly. This place was the land of the monster, he thinks, so he could come to finish him off any second. 

He just wanted to help Max. Show her he was ok.

He just wanted to be home.


	2. Down The Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adding the harrin to the harringrove time.

Steve never really believed in the whole life flashing before your eyes thing. It felt like it was too hyperbolic, too poetic. But when he felt something grab his leg and start dragging him. He found out that he was wrong. 

As he was scrambling around, clawing at the dirt, he saw his life flash before his eyes. He saw back when his parents cared about him. He saw his first day of high school when he wasnt sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. He saw his rise and fall as king. He saw the first time he found out that the supernatural was real. He saw Billy Hargrove beating his face in. He saw how happy he was when he found out he got the job at scoops ahoy. He saw what his drugged-out mind remembered of the Russians. He saw Billy's funeral where he and the kids went to help Max feel less alone. He saw last night when he finally managed to get a girl's number after his dry spell. 

He grabbed the doorframe leading down somewhere, his arms already straining. He screamed for anything to help him, anything to save him. His grip then slipped and he was dragged away from the light of the moon. 

He hit his head hard against one of the stairs and he saw white spots. His vison went in and out and it felt like forever he was dragged until, suddenly, he stopped. He felt grass under his hands but that was all he could tell as he felt himself getting more and more lightheaded. He heard a voice as his eyes closed, a voice he knew too well.

"Harrington?"


	3. Headache

Steves eyes opened slowly, a low groan in the back of his throat. He blinked and raised his hands over his eyes at the light above him. Fuck his head hurt. The memories came back and he quickly went from annoyed to panicked. He sat up fast, making his head spin again 

"That's just going to make it worse Harrington" 

That voice again.

His eyes finally focused on the figure on the other side of the room. It looked like a living room, he finally absorbed he was on the couch. The figure was cleaning a machete as he walked closer. 

Billy Hargrove. 10 feet from him.very much not dead. 

"Oh my god I'm dead" steve mumbled, laying his head back against the back of the couch. 

"You're not dead" Billy spoke before Steve could get more words out. Steve could feel the eye roll even though his vision wouldn't focus enough to see it

"How am I not dead!? you're dead! I carried your fucking body!" 

"Well that's surprisingly kind of you, but I don't think that was me. Not really." 

Steve huffed, putting his throbbing head in his hands 

Billy sighed as he set the knife down on the table and kneeled down so he was at eye level with the other recent graduate. "Stop moving so much. Your head was bleeding pretty bad, think youve got a concussion." 

"I'm dead and have a concussion, great" Steve spoke through his hands, muffling his despair

"You're. Not. Dead. I am, also, not dead. Sorry to disappoint" Billy was more annoyed than anything. There was still the air of Billy. The cocky vibe. It just wasn't quite the same. His voice felt gruffer, and his sarcasm was mostly gone. 

Steve lifted his face from his fingers and finally got a good look at billy since he was kneeling only a foot from him. His curls were overgrown, the front was tied back out of his face, the back still free but dirty. His face was also dirty, in fact it seemed like everything had a layer of dirt on him, as well as some black stuff splatted in his shirt. It wasnt the outfit he saw Billy's body in. It was a torn grey t-shirt with his blue leather jacket. Billy also had a healing cut on his forehead, cutting his left brow and up to his hairline. 

"How am I not dead?" Steve starred into Billy's eyes, seeing if he could catch the bluff 

"I saved your ass that's why" 

Steve had to laugh at that "you? Save me? In your dreams Hargrove" 

Billy grabbed the machete again, still some black stuff on it. "I cut you free" 

Steve took a second to focus on the blade, "Why?"

"Don't get your hopes up Harrington. I need help getting out of here." Billy's response was Kurt, to the point, the smirk that usually seemed to follow everything he said was nowhere to be found. He put the machete down again. 

Steve leaned back and crossed his arms "You've been dead for weeks, you still haven't found the way out?"

"It's not that easy. The entrances change I think. And in order to go out and actually look for them I need someone to have my back." 

"And you want me?" 

"You're really not the ideal option, but we both don't really have much options do we? and I for one am fucking sick of this place"

"If I'm watching your back how can I trust you to watch mine. How can I know the moments something comes up that you won't just use me as bait and run"

Billy was clearing holding something back as he spoke, "I won't. Okay?" 

Steve rolled his eyes "That's not good enough"

Billy stood slowly, looking down at Steve. "Do you want to die here Steve? Never see those brats again-"

"They're not brats"

"That's not the point. Do you want to see them again?" 

"...of course I do"

"Then you need me. Like it or not"


	4. Questions

Steve had a lot of questions:  
"How are you in here?"

"I don't know" 

"Why hasn't it gotten you?"

"I don't know, I fight whatever I come across but the....that monster hasn't tried to kill me in here. I don't know why."

"Will it try and get me again?"

"I. Don't. Know. Ive just been trying to live I haven't exactly met anyone else to ask."

Steve eventually caught on and stopped asking those kind of questions, "I'm hungry, wait what have you eaten here?"

Billy shrugged and replied with a curt, "what I can find." Billy went to the kitchen, grabbing a bag of jerky and tossing it at Steve's head. Steve taught it, almost missing. He opened it and started eating quickly. 

Billy sipped as some slightly discolored water, used to the bitter taste at this point. "And I thought actual Hawkins was a shit hole"

Steve had a weak smile at that "I don't know much about this place, the kids know more-" 

"That girl" Billy said softly "she was with them, got in my head, they told me about her, how she let them in" 

Steve leaned back, "Her name is El." 

Billy nodded, now he had questions that he hoped Steve had some answers to, "is that why you were all at the Byers house that night?" 

Steve gave a nod "not that thing that got you really, more other stuff coming from here." He gestured in a circle around him

"Explains that fucking bat." 

Steve chuckled, "Would have preferred to have that knife." 

Billy looked back at the machete on the counter and smirked "That will be yours when we go out." He stood and went back towards the bedrooms, coming back with a hunting rifle "This is mine." He put it next to the knife of the counter.

Steve looked impressed at the find "do you have any idea where we are going? Where a way out is?" 

Billy shrugged, "I have ideas, spots to hit from what I remember when it took over...Just every time I've tried to hit em alone I get swarmed" 

"They told me about the stuff that happened. You didn't actually do any of it?" 

Billy gulped on nothing but dry air "at first it was a need. It told me what to do and I just I felt this need to do it. First it was still at least partly me.... But more and more I was pushed to the back. That's until-"

"Until you saved El" Steve gulped as well. The kids had told him what happened. Everything that happened with Billy on his Scooby-Doo gang adventure into the Russian Lab. How cocky, arrogant, violent Hargrove ended up being the one to save the day only to die for it. At least they thought he died for it. 

"I wasn't going to let a kid die. Not to that thing. I wasn't. The things it said. It was going to get her and max and...and everyone." He looked to the ceiling to avoid the others eyes, "I may be a dick harrington but I don't want the end of the fucking world as much as everybody else. So yeah, I took the hit" 

"I saw the end" Steve's voice was only a quiet mumble 

"I thought I saw you. What the fuck were you wearing?" 

Steve had to laugh at that "did you really never see me work at scoops ahoy?" 

"That's what you were in? A sailor outfit? Damn. All I really saw was the hair and a flash of blue, was a little bit more focused on max" the question couldn't help but come out of Billy's lips "is she okay?" 

"About as okay as you can be with your brother dead to a demon goo spider."

"I'm not her-" Billy cut the knee jerk reaction off...he didn't know what she was anymore. "Does anybody else know I'm dead or did you guys make up a story that I left?" 

"Told them you were hit by a car, you had a funeral" 

Billy chuckled "really I didn't think I'd get one from them. figured I would either be buried in a shallow grave without anybody talking about it or just cremated and thrown into the wind" 

Steve was almost offended by the statement, "People do care about you Billy, don't ask me why but there was quite a few people there"

Billy sniffed the air to hold back a reaction and let the smirk take over his face, "well you were there"

"Listen I was there for Max." 

Billy nodded, look on his face showed he was not convinced but he didn't open his mouth to give another cocky reply. "How long have I been gone? Theres not really days and nights here" 

"3 months, schools already back up for them, freshmen" he rolled his eyes playfully

Billy smiled softly at that "let's just hope they don't get eaten alive by their peers like you Harrington." 

Steve huffed and glared, "when are we going to head out to look for a way out of this hell hole?" 

"We need to wait for your migraine to settle back down. I don't want to drag your ass. the whole point is that you help me" 

Steve was impaitent, wanting to get out faster but also knew not to argue.


End file.
